I’m trad­ing blog posts with Don­na G. Dri­ver. I’ve writ­ten a YA with a ghost and her YA with a ghost has just been accept­ed for pub­li­ca­tion. She told me what inspired her plot. So, here’s her fas­ci­nat­ing story…

Ghosts Writ­ing Notes, by D. G. Driver

If a ghost from the past want­ed to com­mu­ni­cate through a series of hand­writ­ten notes, would a teenag­er today be able to read them? This was the orig­i­nal premise of my soon-to-be-released YA novel­la Pass­ing Notes.

A cou­ple years ago my 17-year-old daugh­ter was in a rela­tion­ship where I swear the only way she and her boyfriend com­mu­ni­cat­ed was through texts – end­less amounts of non­sen­si­cal (and in my opin­ion, not very roman­tic) texts. I’m pret­ty sure they nev­er actu­al­ly talked to each oth­er. At the same time, my younger daugh­ter, who was nine, was learn­ing to write cur­sive. She was in the rare 3^rd grade class­room that still taught cur­sive writ­ing, as most ele­men­tary schools have pulled that cur­ricu­lum, edu­ca­tors claim­ing it to be unnec­es­sary. Between the two expe­ri­ences of my chil­dren, I came up with a sto­ry idea: a boy is try­ing to win the love of a girl but is fail­ing because he keeps send­ing awk­ward and stu­pid texts or emails. Sud­den­ly, he begins get­ting a series of hand­writ­ten notes giv­ing him advice about how to write love let­ters and win the affec­tions of this girl. He first has to learn how to decode these mys­te­ri­ous notes, and then he tries to fig­ure out who is send­ing them and why.

I orig­i­nal­ly wrote Pass­ing Notes as a short sto­ry, but ear­li­er this year I felt inspired to take anoth­er look at it and stretch it out to a novel­la. Revi­sion is my mantra, and I am a big pro­po­nent of nev­er throw­ing away a sto­ry idea, because you nev­er know when the muse will vis­it with the per­fect solu­tion to “fix” what might be going wrong. In this case, my muse told me the sto­ry just need­ed more to it. I want­ed to real­ly explore who Mark’s girl Bethany was. Why would actu­al love let­ters appeal to her more than the ordi­nary texts and emails that every­one else gets? I intro­duced the rival boy at school, and added a cou­ple of Bethany’s girl­friends who aren’t par­tic­u­lar­ly on Mark’s side either. Most impor­tant­ly, I want­ed to build the rela­tion­ship between Mark and the ghost. How are the two of them relat­ed, and why does it mat­ter to the ghost so much that Mark win Bethany’s affec­tions?  And then, of course, if he fol­lows the ghost’s advice, will it work?

I was thrilled that Fire and Ice, the pub­lish­ers of my mer­maid nov­el Cry of the Sea, agreed to pub­lish Pass­ing Notes. It will be released on Jan­u­ary 24^th, 2015. In the mean­time, do check out my cur­rent nov­el about a girl who dis­cov­ers real mer­maids washed up on the beach dur­ing an oil spill. You can sam­ple the first two chap­ters at the publisher’s web site: www.fireandiceya.com/authors/dgdriver/crysea.html Fol­low me on FB or Twit­ter to keep up to date on the release news for Pass­ing Notes, and read some of my oth­er sto­ries for free on Wattpad.

www.dgdriver.com

www.facebook.com/donnagdriver

Twit­ter: @DGDriverAuthor

www.d‑g-driver.tumblr.com

http://www.wattpad.com/user/DGDriver

www.pinterest.com/dgdriver

www.instagram.com/d_g_driver#

Buy Links for Cry of the Sea:

http://www.parnassusbooks.net/book/9781612357867

(It is my under­stand that if you buy from this indie book store in Nashville, you can request an auto­graphed copy. They will email me, and I just have to drop by the store to sign a copy before they mail it)

http://www.lulu.com/shop/view-cart.ep

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IM0JF06

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cry-of-the-sea-d-g-driver/1118708060?ean=9781612357867

http://www.bookdepository.com/Cry-Sea-Driver/9781612357867

http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Cry-Sea/D‑G-Driver/9781612357867?id=6119232814287